The school is where we learn a lot of things, most of which help us in the long run. But what if some of it is totally false? Read on to find out the wrongs that were taught to the poor, naive you in school! You don't get to sue your high school teacher, though.
1. You have five senses
No, you don't have superpowers but surely not just five senses! Other than sight, smell, touch, hearing, taste there is the sense of balance & acceleration(equilibrioception), pain (nociception), body and limb position (proprioception or kinesthetic sense), sense of time, pressure, hunger, thirst, stomach full-ness, need to urinate, itch, direction and so on!
2. Bats are blind & rely on echolocation to see things
Bats aren't really blind, in fact, they can see better than humans in darkness! They just use echolocation to augment their vision and even choose things that they spot by sight over echolocation sometimes.
3. Columbus discovered America & that the Earth is spherical
Actually, the Viking Leif Erikson discovered 'Murica first in 1,000 A.D and ancient Greek mathematicians had already formulated and deduced that the Earth is in fact round about 2000 years before Mr. Columbus was even born!
4. An apple fell on Sir Isaac Newton's head, helping him discover gravity
It is true that Sir Isaac Newton devised the theory of gravity by watching an apple fall from a tree, but it is just a spiced up tale to say that the apple actually hit Newton on the head, on its way down!
5. Humans evolved from chimpanzees
It is true that humans share a common ancestor with chimps. About 6 million years ago the two species (humans & chimpanzees) formed two separate lineages, although we could say that we share a common ancestor, it is absurd to say that humans evolved from monkeys!
6. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb
This is the biggest misinformation ever! Edison just bought the patent from the widow of fellow inventor Heinrich Goebel and claimed it as his own invention (or not, maybe the made that up too!).
7. We only use about 10% of our brain
A better statement would be that we use about 10% of our brain at a time. Different parts of our brain "light up" while doing different sorts of tasks. Over the course of a day, we can safely say that a human has used his entire brain.
8. The Great Wall of China can be seen from space & even the Moon
Although it is around 9000m long, NASA & China's 1st astronaut have denied that it can be seen from outer space. The Wall is is narrow (10m wide) and isn't a straight line; it would be like seeing a single hair from 2,688m away.
9. Sweet, sour, bitter & salt are detected on different parts of the tongue!
Do you remember that diagram where the human tongue was divided like the political map of the world? Yeah, that's totally wrong, the entire surface of the tongue detects every possible taste!
10. The Sahara is the largest desert in the world
Nope, the Antarctic is the largest desert in the world, yes rainfall is the determining factor here and not sand!
11. Space has no gravity
This is a technical error to be precise. Every object with mass exerts some gravity, and in space, there are lots of those objects, just too far away and with varying gravitational pull. The experience of weightlessness is just the constant state of free-fall. Go figure!
